Role Play
What is Role Play? Story In this sense, role playing is collaborative storytelling. The story is role playing's whole purpose, without it, it is nothing. Everything written in a post is a part of the story. Characters And of course, all stories have characters. The character is its own person, it has wants, needs, tendencies, faults and virtues. Not all characters are equal, just as not all people are equal. A blacksmith will undoubtedly be far more comfortable in hot weather than a man from a normally cold climate region. Every character has a story: He or she has a place of birth, a home, and a thought/goal/wish to be somewhere, similar to you or I. The setting your character role plays in may not be his/her home, merely a place they happened to walk into (IE: A tavern, inn, pub, etc.) When the character RP's into a setting however, the RP must remain consistent with the setting (IE: Setting = Tavern : Your character obviously won't be going on any big adventures, or starting a big fight. The consistencies of the tavern - the bar counter, tables, other patrons, etc, must be considered before posting) and remain true to that setting. Setting Every character must have some region they are from and a direction in which they are going. The setting is not simply some place the character exists, it is the place your character interacts with. The setting must be preserved, failure in consistency with detail --instances where a writer describes their Vampyre lounging around, followed by a writer describing the scene as a sunny day-- should never happen. Post One person cannot write the entire story alone, it is collaborative storytelling after all. There may be a posting order given, although that is not always necessary. Each and every post adds to the story as it grows and changes. With every story, there may be several different stories underlying the 'main' story. Any given writer is allowed to change the story as they wish, within reason of course. The nation will not go to war in a single post, but the courier may bring news of impending war to the king. Battle Where in general role play, there is no need for a posting order, during a fight, this is not the case. There is an exact posting order, to be fair in the sense that one writer is not simply writing faster than the other to deal the blows their character may give. In battle, the writers must realize that preservation of the story is of the highest importance, preservation of the character comes second. It is a sad day when a writer chooses their character over the story. Role playing battles are roleplays where the characters fight -- not the roleplayers. Typical Role Play errors. Autohit The autohit. This is when a roleplayer writes an action that affects the character of another roleplayer in the same post, leaving the second roleplayer and their character the chance to avoid that action. It is when one player forces an action onto another player. The most noticable autohits are during battle. Namely, when one character deals a full blow to another character, sometimes even going as far as describing the damage dealt. The less noticable autos range from shooting an arrow that clips the other character's shirt to one kissing their lover. Godmode The godmode. Godmoding hands control of the story to one character or player, nullifying the point of roleplaying completely. An example of godmoding would be during combat, a character displays an inexplainable immunity to an attack launched at him or when that character is able to perform an attack (that is usually destructive) without explaining or verifying this power through the sheet. Even when a power that is explained on a sheet works in a diferent way during role play for the roleplayer's benefit. Metagame Metagame. This is when a writer takes information they know and gives that knowledge to their character during the course of roleplay. There is a boundary that keeps the character a separate entity of the roleplayer and metagaming kills that boundary, making the character just an extension of the roleplayer. An example of metagaming would be when charcter X has been plotting character Y's death for weeks, behind charater Y's back. When character X is about to make their move on character Y, the role player (who has seen all of character X's plans) thrusts their knowledge of the events onto character Y. Suddenly and inexplicably, character Y knows everything character X has painfully worked out.